origin of the concept of god

Milkman

Does Logos have any books that specifically speak to:

The earliest concepts of g(G)od.
How each culture, beginning from recorded written/picto history, viewed the divine.
Why there are parallels between Judaic and non-Judaic views of god that differ so much and I might add differences between 1st century to 5th century parallel views as well.
Modern interpretations of the god-concept that deny or substantiate biblical historicity.

Finally,

putting faith aside for the moment, a well documented, learned and apologetic resource that "proves" that the christian god is all that we trust him to be.

mm.

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Room4more

Sounds like a prof syllabus paper - good luck!

what was the recommended[suggested] reading list?

R4m

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477593#Comment_477593

@ R4m,

Actually it's not a syllabus. As far as the reading goes; That's what I'm looking for.

mm.

Room4more

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477597#Comment_477597

no pun intended but try the history channel, they do a fantastic job of the Maya's and how they were so far advanced.......and they use the Bible as well.

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477599#Comment_477599

Thanks but no thanks. I've pvr'd the entire series, but found that many if not most of the so-called experts do not reference their claims. Many lean on a guy by the name of Sitchin who doesn't reference his claims regarding divine origins. Also, there is a lot of chatter around the idea of aliens etc. Now this is intriguing and pulls the unstable undocked, but just to fanciful for me.

Any other suggestions that are worthwhile?

mm.

Room4more

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477605#Comment_477605

not at the moment, kinda frazzled from sorting and converting documents....

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477607#Comment_477607

Well at least you're a conditioned (frazzled/frizzled) evangelist (converting) working hard. Thanks for the advice.

mm.

MJ. Smith

None are quite what you want but:

God by Timothy A. Robinson

The Law of God: The Philosophical History of an Idea by Remi Brague and Lydia G. Cochrane

Gods, goddesses, and myths of creation: A thematic source book of the history of religions by Mircea Eliade

A fourth possibility remains on the tip of my tongue

David Bailey

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477622#Comment_477622

Also check this resource:

The Early History of God

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477622#Comment_477622

Hopefully the cat doesn't eat it. Eliade's and Brague's books look interesting.

mm.

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477627#Comment_477627

@ David B.

I'm not sure how to take Smith. I have his, Origins of Biblical monotheism. I guess as they say, The verdict is still out. Good suggestion about his other book. It may be a soon-future acquisition.

mm.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477628#Comment_477628

The one I couldn't think of is:

The Idea of the Holy by Rudolf Otto

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477630#Comment_477630

@MJ

What a great book. I read it in seminary. Looking for something a bit less subjective.

mm.

ps. Good to see the cat didn't get fed.

Rosie Perera

A search for "origin of the idea of god" in my Library produced:

putting faith aside for the moment, a well documented, learned and apologetic resource that "proves" that the christian god is all that we trust him to be.

Aren't the two halves of that sentence mutually incompatible?

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477653#Comment_477653

@ Rosie.

"mutually incompatible?"

I was thinking of the "trust him to be" idea that was built on the foundation of documented and substantiated proofs. One could say more scientific, but that's an argument in and of itself and may be part of this question.

However, my main thrust of the thread is to find how the whole god-concept came to the first human mind. Is it/was it an eternity in our hearts, an innate thought inserted from outside us or was it something humankind invented to explain the unexplainable? Such as death, poverty, pain, winter storms and summer droughts.

So in a nut-shell. Did the first guy/woman who "thought" of god come up with it herself or did it come from an outside intelligent source other than human. Essentially alien, but not like the ancient alien ideas one can read on the internet or listen to on mid-night radio shows.

mm.

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477745#Comment_477745

So in a nut-shell. Did the first guy/woman who "thought" of god come up with it herself or did it come from an outside intelligent source other than human. Essentially alien, but not like the ancient alien ideas one can read on the internet or listen to on mid-night radio shows.

I hope I am not hijacking the thread and taking it into theological waters, I am just trying to clarify the question... So you are intimating that Gen 3:8 is not an accurate/historically reliable source? or are you looking for extra-biblical sources to validate the Biblical account?

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477748#Comment_477748

@ David,

Can you hold to the historical reliability of the Bible and the Genesis creation account in particular and still search for the answers to my thread? Or does looking for answers to my thread necessitate a denial of the inspiration of God's Word?

mm.

David Thomas

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477758#Comment_477758

@ David,

Can you hold to the historical reliability of the Bible and the Genesis creation account in particular and still search for the answers to my thread? Or does looking for answers to my thread necessitate a denial of the inspiration of God's Word?

mm.

No offense intended. I went back and re-read your original post. The "clarification" that I quoted and the title of the thread seemed to give me an impression that was other than the specifics in your original post.

Something inside of me just bristled with the notion that the "concept of God" was something that came from within ancient human civilizations, rather than a reality that started within the eternal God and that a "god awareness" was part of the psyche of original created humanity. I just had some discussions over spring break with my son who is a university student. His Intro to Philosophy professor has been teaching some concepts as if they were undisputed realities. (i.e. there is no absolute truth).

My apologies. It appears I read into your statement something that was not there.

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477765#Comment_477765

@ David,

No offense taken. It was a great question.

However, and no offense intended. You didn't reply to my last post.

mm.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477758#Comment_477758

I 'bristled' at the question (hair-brush?). In early Arizona, apache warriors put on extremely powerful war-paint on their faces, which was capable of blocking the high-speed lead bullets of the intruders. Whether a 'god' was involved or not is/was arguable. Just pointing out that many cultures dealt in 'magic', talismans, lucky rabbit-feet without the necessity of conscious 'gods'. It wouldn't surprise me if that is also today's non-religious.

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477800#Comment_477800

@ Denise,

Where's your face?

What made you bristle? Well I guess we should probably stop this thread because I think Logos doesn't want any theological bantering going on.

Anyway, I'll wait for more replies regarding my original thread.

mm.

DMB

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477808#Comment_477808

Oh, I was just joking (bristles can be hair-brushes). I wasn't making a theological point; only that many folks think in terms of 'gods' and leave out 'magic' which empowered the human in the same way. Just for thinking purposes, 'gods' often show up when one human group wants to manage another human group. 'Magic' tends to move along a 1-to-1 dynamic similar to Simon in Acts, not demanding a specific god.

I lost my pastel blue humanoid; so faced with what appears to be a very serious and authoritative 'guy', I inserted a beautiful though subtle white image of nothing.

Jack Caviness

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477765#Comment_477765

His Intro to Philosophy professor has been teaching some concepts as if they were undisputed realities. (i.e. there is no absolute truth).

Doesn't "undisputed realities" necessarily require a belief in absolute truth? If there is no absolute truth, there can be no "undisputed realities."

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477745#Comment_477745

putting faith aside for the moment, a well documented, learned and apologetic resource that "proves" that the christian god is all that we trust him to be.

Aren't the two halves of that sentence mutually incompatible?

"mutually incompatible?"

I was thinking of the "trust him to be" idea that was built on the foundation of documented and substantiated proofs. One could say more scientific, but that's an argument in and of itself and may be part of this question.

I didn't mean that the bold and unbold parts were mutually incompatible, I meant that the lefthand bold part "putting faith aside" was incompatible with the righthand bold part, actually the whole end of the sentence, "the christian god is all we trust him to be." If we're talking about what we trust him to be (and looking for scientific evidence of that), then we're not "putting faith aside" are we? I just wasn't sure what you meant by putting faith aside, in the context of that sentence. It wasn't meant to be a disagreement with your quest at all, just a puzzlement about what your actual goal is.

It surely is possible to set faith aside and look for the earliest notions of god among any human religions, and that's a fine research question, but then it's not about looking to see if "the christian god is all we trust him to be." It just seemed inherently logically impossible, what you were trying to do. Maybe I'm reading too much into one little phrase there. Sorry. Maybe you meant to set faith aside for the time being, to do the research into historical developments of the notion of god, and then put your faith hat back on again and compare those ancient ideas with what we trust the christian god to be?

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477898#Comment_477898

@ Rosie,

But what if a person is struggling with his belief that the Genesis story may not be accurate and wants to determine from research and study that it either is or is not historically accurate/valid.

What if he wants to figure out that the Mosaic account was not just borrowed and pieced together from other cultural systems? What if he wants to finally put to rest all his 'taboo' thoughts (ones that are never mentioned either in the pew or from the pulpit) that the Genesis account could be wrong or simply borrowed to the degree that it was not inspired?

And what if he desperately needs closure either one way or the other to finally silence the voices that persistently scream, "your God is not!"

So, that's the basis for my initial comment when I began this thread.

mm. [:)]

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477912#Comment_477912

Oh, I get it now. Wow, thanks for your honesty, and admitting those 'taboo' thoughts that many of us have from time to time (or in some cases a lot of the time).

A word of encouragement in the midst of your quest. I just posted this quote in another thread last night, but it's worth repeating here: Helmut Thielicke (20th century German theologian) said, "The doubters are always more blessed than the mere fellow travelers in faith. For they are the only ones who fully learn that their Lord is stronger than any doubt and any hell of despair."

I'm not sure if you will ever be able to finally and forever silence those voices, but that you persist in wanting to know truth in spite of them is a sign that you are already reaping the blessings of being one who struggles with doubts. It's not an easy road, but it's very rewarding and you have company along the path. St. Thomas was there before you, and Jesus gave him a very special help for his doubts -- he got to be the first (perhaps only?) one to actually put his fingers in Jesus' wounds. Sometimes Thomas is judged harshly for being a doubter, but I think Jesus had a very special relationship with Thomas that the others didn't need.

Another quote from my pastor (the same one who introduced me to Thielicke's thought) was "When you're struggling with doubts, stay with the people of faith." It sounds like you want to believe the Genesis story and are losing your grip on that. You might end up coming to a place where you can still hold onto your faith that "God is!" and still accept scientific explanations for how God created, and still accept that there could have been a good deal of borrowing going on in the writing of Genesis, and still hold onto the belief that it was inspired by God. How could all of that be compatible, you might wonder? Well, keep up your relationship with God in the midst of your questioning, and he will reveal to you how it is you can continue to believe in him and trust that he is who he says he is without shutting up your questioning spirit or checking your intellect at the door when you go to church. And let his Spirit guide you into all Truth.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477800#Comment_477800

I 'bristled' at the question (hair-brush?). In early Arizona, apache warriors put on extremely powerful war-paint on their faces, which was capable of blocking the high-speed lead bullets of the intruders. Whether a 'god' was involved or not is/was arguable. Just pointing out that many cultures dealt in 'magic', talismans, lucky rabbit-feet without the necessity of conscious 'gods'. It wouldn't surprise me if that is also today's non-religious.

It wouldn't surprise me if that was true of today's religious.

[:O]

Milkman

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477927#Comment_477927

Thank-you Rosie, that was very kind of you and a much needed word of encouragement. I hadn't put your thoughts about Thomas together, but that was quite up-lifting.

Maybe getting back to church would be a good thing. We haven't been to church for about ten years as the last church asked me to resign over leadership issues. They wanted more of a CEO type and that wasn't me. No blame on anyone, just not the right fit. However, that left an enormous hole in our hearts and ripped away any desire to fellowship with His people. I could go on, but we're not the first or the last family to go through this. I did receive much encouragement from Piper' book, Brothers We Are Not Professionals.

Thank very much again.

mm.

MJ. Smith

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477912#Comment_477912

to finally silence the voices that persistently scream, "your God is not!"

Speaking for myself, I find I have to frequently revisit my concept of God because the concept I have is too small, too human. My normal response to atheists after an open discussion is "if I thought God was defined the way you define God, I wouldn't believe either ... Consider modifying your idea of God"

Randall Cue

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477938#Comment_477938

Despite all of the theological, philosophical, ethical, and academic arguments that can be (and have been) made, we are driven back to Hebrews 11:6.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Randy

Schezic

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477966#Comment_477966

Speaking for myself, I find I have to frequently revisit my concept of God because the concept I have is too small

Consider "Your God is too small" by J.B. Phillips.

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477967#Comment_477967

Despite all of the theological, philosophical, ethical, and academic arguments that can be (and have been) made, we are driven back to Hebrews 11:6.

In the context of Milkman's brutal honesty about his struggles with doubt, this could be taken as a bash over the head with a verse which tells him he must have faith (on his own strength), and if he doesn't, he cannot please God. Not helpful in the current circumstances of his life.

To Milkman, I'd say: don't worry about people like Randall giving you verses like this to shut down your honest questioning. That's probably part of what drove you out of church in the first place. God does not expect you to muster up the faith in him on your own and just get over it (the doubts) and get on with it (your life of serving him). Heb 11:6 must be taken in the context of the whole of Scripture: there is more in the Bible about faith being a gift from God than it being something we do on our own strength in isolation from grace.

I've come to understand Eph 2:8a as being more properly read "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith" without the comma that the NIV throws in before "through"; that is, "it is by grace that you-have-been-saved-through-faith"; in other words "by grace" modifies the whole rest of the clause, not leaving "through faith" to hang out there by itself as a separate fact ungranted by grace. Yes, we are saved by faith, but this whole thing is a gift from God. Read on to the rest of the verse and you'll see why this is the correct reading of the first half: "and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Walter Bruggemann says in The Prophetic Imagination, "radical faith is not an achievement; for if it were, we would will it and be done. Rather, it is a gift, and we are left to wait receptively, to watch and to pray."

So, Milkman, pray for the ability to believe, seek out the people who are telling you things that help restore your faith rather than scorning you for having those taboo thoughts.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/477995#Comment_477995

I spent about an hour and a half writing a reply to the OP...but by the time I was about to post, the conversation had taken a significant turn, so those comments sit in an open window. Rather than taking the sentiment of the OP (and the subsequent post below) to task for trying to squeeze meaning from a patently impossible hypothetical--

However, my main thrust of the thread is to find how the whole god-concept came to the first human mind. Is it/was it an eternity in our hearts, an innate thought inserted from outside us or was it something humankind invented to explain the unexplainable? Such as death, poverty, pain, winter storms and summer droughts.

So in a nut-shell. Did the first guy/woman who "thought" of god come up with it herself or did it come from an outside intelligent source other than human. Essentially alien, but not like the ancient alien ideas one can read on the internet or listen to on mid-night radio shows.

...I chose rather to just open a new window and post this reply instead.

I posted something to the effect of what I'm about to say in one or two earlier threads, but I don't recall which particular threads those were, so I will just recap. As I've taken to saying rather often lately, and am currently engaged in relaying in this thread, the whole Bible is prophecy. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that nearly every syllable in the Bible has some overtone of prophecy attached to it. Having said that, I am well aware that such an assertion is considered both laughable and absurd by most "learned" Bible exegetes. It is a hermeneutic concept that is practically nonsense to those who traffic in the merchandise of hermeneutics on a daily basis. But as I've pointed out, that mindset is EXACTLY the kind of mindset that is necessary to allow something like Dan. 12: 4, 9, 10 to be possible. I hear Christians say with clockwork regularity that God has made the Bible so easy to comprehend that even a child can understand it. Is that your experience? Do you find the Bible easy to understand? Careful how you answer that question, because the questions follow will wash sandy confidence away with tsunamic certainty.

No, the Bible isn't easy to understand, and parts of it are downright puzzling, to describe it charitably. Why would that be so? Why would He "seal up" the Book from being understood? There are reasons...and they ARE clearly expressed...but they are also rather terrifying. They are tied to the concepts of the "famine of the hearing of the word of YHWH" and "the strong delusion" ("working of error"), both of which YHWH says He sends--get this--not against the hopeless pagans and athiests of the world, but against those who call upon His Name. Having said that, I really can't say more, and it isn't because of forum rules. Rather, it just isn't time. Sorry for being so elliptical, but it can't be helped.

What I can say is this: prophecy, once the deliberately imposed blindness of the famine and delusion are removed, will start to fall into place with surprising compactness and in ways that are far beyond the imagination of pretty much anyone and everyone on the planet. Stunned shock will prevail over Christians and non-Christians alike. When these things occur, Rev. 12:9 's "the whole world" will confirm that the "if it were possible" from Mt. 24:24 & Mk. 13:22 is in fact decidedly certain, thus making Rom. 3:4 's "every man a liar" at that time a presently established reality. How can this be? It is because those of whom Yeishuu`a is speaking in Mt. 7:21, 22, 23 are all individuals who would say with absolute conviction, "I love Jesus in my heart."

Prophecy details what I just presented (in drastically limited outline) with amazing specificity. Not with half-a-dozen or a dozen random prophecies, but literally with hundreds and hundreds of prophecies that criss-cross and confirm each other by factors of 5 or 10 or even more. Some survive the translation into English, others are bound in the Hebrew and Greek. Why bring all this up? Mainly because I want to, if possible, alleviate some of the doubt mm is feeling. But doing so is a kind of double-edged sword.

On the one hand, math will become our friend. If I started to give details a verse at a time about the prophecies I referenced above, a voluminous cacophony of "but that's just a coincidence"s would practically drown me out. These responses would be motivated by doubt and sarcasm at first. But coincidence is a funny thing. Alone it is just that...a coincidence. But when they start to combine, the dynamic begins to change rather quickly. It is sort of along the line of getting someone to agree to pay you a penny on day one, two pennies on day two, four pennies on day three, and so on, doubling each day for a whole month. If you haven't been made familiar with that old bit of math fascination, grab a calculator and run that out. Coincidences are quite like that in that as they multiply the chances of them being random becomes more and more remote. Take a simple string of six connected coincidences. Is that likely, or unlikely? Well, put it this way...if you get a string of six connected coincidences, you just won Powerball! Chances of that happening? Nine digits-to-one...i.e. roughly half-a-billion to one!

But what if you have twelve coincidences in a row? Because each additional coincidence is far, far more unlikely than the number of coincidences you have at any given point, the number of digits increases at more than one digit per coincidence. For instance, just six coincidences produces nine digits worth of unlikelihood. Doubling our six coincidences to twelve would more than double the digits of unlikelihood, so that it wouldn't just be eighteen digits, but more like 20-25. But just for the sake of argument, since some will undoubtedly take exception to my example, insisting it isn't valid, let's become extreme conservative--even stupidly so. Let's only assign HALF a digit for each coincidence (a grossly absurd undercount), and let's not bother increasing the rate of digits based on the geometric unlikelihood of each additional connected coincidence. So, if we have say forty linked coincidences, that would give us a statistical possibility of twenty-digits to one. If we have a hundred linked coincidences, that would give us a likelihood chance of 10^50, or a 1-in-100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance of occurring.

Remember, if we had not changed the rate from that derived from the six coincidence statistic for Powerball, which gave us a 9-digit probability of likelihood, then the looooong number above would have three times as many zeros in it, or ~150 zeros. Again, that is the likelihood that you could have a string of 100 linked coincidences occur. On this super-cool website that Rosie provided a link to, the span from the smallest to the largest measures in the universe are 10^-35 to 10^27 which gives a an adjusted 10^62 from a Planck length to the distance across the entire universe. Let's put all this in perspective. A googol, from which the Google web browser gets its name, is 10^100 or a one with one hundred zeros--vastly larger than our universe if we measured it in millimeters. As a number in our universe, it is practically useless--it is too big to measure anything. Now, get this...

There are HUNDREDS of connected prophecies in the Bible that speak to a prophetic reality that is both inescapable and absolutely unexpected by ANYONE in the history of humanity. I actually doubt that all the resident prophecies will be fully teased out of the Bible before Yeishuu`a returns. But using our deliberate yet absurd undercount of just one digit of statistical unlikelihood per two linked coincidences, we would only need two hundred linked coincidences to produce a statistical likelihood of 1-in-googol. Two points here: first, because a googol is for all practical purposes a useless and meaningless number in our galaxy...I'm sorry--universe...to say that something has a 1-in-googol chance of happening is to say it is statistically impossible. Now turn that around--if something that only has a 1-in-googol chance of happening actually has happened...then you are no longer speaking about "chance"...you are speaking about

DESIGN.

I assure you, there are hundreds of linked and connected prophecies in the Bible which are interconnected in a staggering web-like fashion. We are talking about multiple googals of improbability if a realistic likelihood-factor is employed...and yet undeniably and inescapably THERE in the Bible.

This establishes one thing that cannot be disputed--PROPHECY TRUMPS EVERYTHING. Prophecy trumps Einstein, Newton, Planck, Hubble, Hawking, and Darwin...and it also trumps relativity, gravity, space, and time...it even trumps you, your mama, AND your daddy! PROPHECY trumps everything that exists in the created order. It is so impossible that it is immovable...because it IS. Prophecy trumps history and archaeology and most of all...and this is the point I wanted you to get...most of all PROPHECY TRUMPS DOUBT!!!

That should comfort you, mm.

Great as that may sound, though...not all is well. The problem we face in this world isn't doubt about God. James 2:19 The Israelites KNEW that YHWH existed. That wasn't their problem. Heb. 3:18, 19 THEY SAW YHWH EVERY SINGLE DAY AND NIGHT...and yet verse 19 says they had unbelief. What was the problem with the Israelites?? Well, it becomes obvious that something almost everyone thinks is true...simply isn't. Doubt is not the opposite of unbelief. OBEDIENCE is the opposite of unbelief. Read Heb. 3:18, 19 again. Not convinced? How about Jn. 3:36? Hmmmm. Now try this one again...James 2:19, but with Jn. 3:36 and Heb. 3:18,19 in mind (with Tit. 1:15, 16 thrown in for good measure) continue to read in James 2 with the definition that Yeishuu`a Himself gives of belief...that BELIEF = OBEDIENCE...James 2:20, 21, 22, 23, 24, especially verse 23. Gives that old stand-by, Jn. 3:16 and bit of a different complexion, doesn't it...especially with the last verse of that chapter in view. Jn. 3:36

These all show ONE principle foremost in YHWH's mind.

Randall Cue

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/478089#Comment_478089

Despite all of the theological, philosophical, ethical, and academic arguments that can be (and have been) made, we are driven back to Hebrews 11:6.

In the context of Milkman's brutal honesty about his struggles with doubt, this could be taken as a bash over the head with a verse which tells him he must have faith (on his own strength), and if he doesn't, he cannot please God. Not helpful in the current circumstances of his life.

To Milkman, I'd say: don't worry about people like Randall giving you verses like this to shut down your honest questioning. That's probably part of what drove you out of church in the first place. God does not expect you to muster up the faith in him on your own and just get over it (the doubts) and get on with it (your life of serving him). Heb 11:6 must be taken in the context of the whole of Scripture: there is more in the Bible about faith being a gift from God than it being something we do on our own strength in isolation from grace.

I've come to understand Eph 2:8a as being more properly read "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith" without the comma that the NIV throws in before "through"; that is, "it is by grace that you-have-been-saved-through-faith"; in other words "by grace" modifies the whole rest of the clause, not leaving "through faith" to hang out there by itself as a separate fact ungranted by grace. Yes, we are saved by faith, but this whole thing is a gift from God. Read on to the rest of the verse and you'll see why this is the correct reading of the first half: "and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God."

Walter Bruggemann says in The Prophetic Imagination, "radical faith is not an achievement; for if it were, we would will it and be done. Rather, it is a gift, and we are left to wait receptively, to watch and to pray."

So, Milkman, pray for the ability to believe, seek out the people who are telling you things that help restore your faith rather than scorning you for having those taboo thoughts.

You have misinterpreted my motives and I believe the verse I quoted.

Soli Deo Gloria,

Randall

Rosie Perera

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/478126#Comment_478126

You have misinterpreted my motives and I believe the verse I quoted.

I believe your motives are good, and I believe the verse too.

I just sensed a vulnerability in mm and wanted to speak to that, speaking completely past you -- not disagreeing with you. Sorry if it came across as a rebuttal to you. And the verse you quoted is sometimes helpful to people struggling with doubts.

Lynden O. Williams

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/478260#Comment_478260

Milkman, I would suggest that you find the oldest civilization, see if they had religion, and how it came about. I understand the Sumerians are the oldest on record (at least that wrote) so start with them.

David Paul

https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/478104#Comment_478104

Milkman, my last post on this thread also has a kind of proof of the Bible's truth and supernatural provenance, and there's tons of that kind of stuff.

This kind of thing is very similar to the prophecy stuff I wrote about in my post above because the chances that these things are random chance are astronomically small.